Baltimore County's proposed mask ban draws continued scrutiny

Natalie Jones, The Baltimore Sun on Mar 10, 2026

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The Baltimore County bill that aims to ban law enforcement officers from wearing masks to conceal their identities and to require them to identify themselves on the job visibly continues to draw scrutiny from one Republican councilman.

Councilman Izzy Patoka, a Pikesville Democrat who’s running for county executive, introduced the measure last month amid concerns about the conduct of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents across the country, though the bill targets law enforcement at the federal, state, and local levels.

“Let me just be clear: This is not the Baltimore County Police Department; this is a federal law enforcement agency — ICE,” he said at a council work session Tuesday. “We see it on the news every night, and they are clearly, in my opinion, trying to create terror and fear.”

But Councilman Todd Crandell, a Dundalk Republican who previously characterized Patoka’s effort as election-year pandering, doubled down on his previous comments, adding that he’s spoken with rank-and-file police officers in the county about the issue.

“When a patrol officer responds to a call and has to go into a home or a neighborhood where there’s an immigrant population, whether they’re legally documented in the United States or not, one of the first things they have to do is dispel any notion that they are ICE or on the scene to enforce immigration policy because that’s not what Baltimore County police does,” he said.

Under an executive order issued by former County Executive Kevin Kamenetz in 2017, Baltimore County’s police officers are barred from arresting, detaining, or extending the stop or detention of a person based on a civil administrative warrant, a prior deportation order, any document related to a civil immigration violation, or an alleged violation of civil immigration laws. That order remains in effect.

“We don’t legislate to make a statement. We don’t make a law to make a statement,” Crandell said. “When you want to make a statement, you make a statement. You don’t make laws that don’t pertain to anything that doesn’t exist to make that statement.”

Patoka said he did want to make a statement — a statement that if ICE agents are in Baltimore County wearing masks or trying to hide their personal identity, those agents would be in “clear violation” of county laws.

“They can’t come into this county and violate our laws,” he said.

Councilman Julian Jones, a Woodstock Democrat who’s also running for county executive, referred to the supremacy clause of the Constitution, which establishes that federal law takes precedence over conflicting state or local laws.

An analysis from Baltimore County’s own Office of Law found that enforcing a mask ban on federal law enforcement would be “vulnerable to a challenge.”

The council will vote on the bill Monday.

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